The Canary in the Culture

Tom Trinko makes incredibly important points in his latest article at American Thinker:

At the heart of the HHS mandate is the belief that the First Amendment does not mean what it says. To most the phrase

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

is pretty clear. It does not say freedom of worship, i.e. the right to go to church on Sunday or the temple on Saturday, as many liberals proclaim. It says that people can practice, i.e. exercise, their religious beliefs.

Under the Constitution, Americans define their own moral beliefs and in the vast majority of cases the government has to live with Americans practicing their beliefs. The HHS mandate is showing us that in the liberal mind, the government defines everyone’s morality and the average American has to live with the governments’ definition.

Liberals often demand that the beliefs and even feelings of tiny minorities of Americans must be respected; that’s why the 2.4% of Americans who are atheists can demand, in the minds of liberals, that high school valedictorian speakers not mention Jesus. Liberals support of tiny groups extends to those things that force the vast majority of Americans to behave differently and even against what they believe is right on occasion…

[…]

The harsh reality however is that liberals don’t give a hoot about the rights of small groups of Americans. If one examines liberal positions, one will find that liberals only support small groups when those small groups agree with liberal principles. That’s why liberals will support the Ground Zero Mosque but fight tooth and nail against a religious monument at a public cemetery.

[…]

What this boils down to is simple; the liberal vision of America is one where the government defines what is right and wrong and all Americans must follow those definitions.

Liberals are essentially turning the First Amendment on its head. A key objective of the Framers when they wrote the First Amendment was to prevent the establishment of a single government religion; many early Americans had left England to avoid oppression by the Church of England. The HHS mandate is showing us that liberals are striving to establish a single government religion.

Videos

Quotes

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” —James Madison (1792)